Paul Saginaw sets the record straight on employee ownership and participation within an evolving Zingerman’s

As I suspect most of you know, a few days ago the Business Insider posted an article stating that, in the near future, Zingerman’s would be transitioning to a “worker-owned cooperative”. As you may not know, however, the folks at Zingerman’s quickly came out to say this wasn’t the case. While they were indeed planning to increase the voice of their employees in corporate decision making, and intended to put a system in place to increase employee ownership, Zingerman’s would not, according to the company’s release, become an employee-owned cooperative. Not satisfied to leave it at that, I reached out to Zingerman’s co-founder Paul Saginaw this weekend to ask why they wouldn’t be pursuing a cooperative model, and what, specifically, they intend to do instead.